In the Eyes of a Twili
by Twilian Mistique
Summary: Midna decided to leave the Light Realm after all, but it seems she wasn't totally alone as she first thought she was; she brought with her a baby. The resemblance to Link is almost too much to bear, but she manages. Amidst the drama of a child, it seems Zant has returned with different intentions than before, and now Link and Midna must protect the worlds again...and their daughter


**Chapter 1 - Aurora**

I gaze out my window at the Twilight surrounding me, my orange hair loosely billowing behind me every time the slightest breeze blow through the cold black stone of the window. Tiny flecks of ebon dust float everywhere, disappearing into the atmosphere far below me in the courtyard whenever it rises high enough. All is quiet, as most people are at home asleep, resting for the start of a new day, not that you can tell just by looking at the sky what time it is. Perpetual twilight makes judging the time difficult for those who are not used to it. It is more like an internal alarm clock telling you when it is time to go to sleep, wake up, eat lunch, etc. Still, part of me expects night to come, still expects the stars to peek out from behind the twilight's concealing curtain, for them to surround the moon that always dominates the sky on cloudless Hyrulian nights. After the year I spent in the Light Realm, how can I forget the immense beauty of it all? I can't. Once the war ended in both realms and everyone on the journey recuperated for a few days, I had returned to my realm. It almost makes me sad when the sun doesn't rise again in the morning, the moon following in its wake over the course of the day.

You'd think I was happy when I first returned to my realm, when I saw that only after three days since all evil had vanished from my realm it began to return to its original state, that everything was going to be back to normal for the most part. You'd think that I was, and still am, relieved. The truth is: I'm not. Not in the slightest. I can't help but think that what I've done, what I did, was wrong in more ways than one. When I returned, everything felt so… unreal, like a dream, a bad one. What was the real reason I'd left? Maybe it wasn't in the hopes that my people would no longer harm the inhabitants of Hyrule and cause more problems than we already had, that I had the sense of duty as princess of my realm. After all, it never was our fault in the long-run - it was Ganondorf's.

I close my eyes and shake my head, orange bangs falling into my eyes. This is what I spend most of my time doing, sitting around doing nothing unless I have a council meeting, sulking, or on a particularly bad day… both. When I'm not doing that…

"Wahh!" something cries out. Something? How awfully rude! It is someone. I quickly open my eyes and glance up and gaze into the far corner of the room where a black crib-like object resides in the shadows. Immediately, I shoot up and rush over to it, gently picking up the violet bundle resting within and placing it in the crook of my right arm, rocking it. Teal lines crawl up the baby's skin, just like my own, only more on the green side.

"Shh, shh, shh, don't cry Aurora," I coo to the child. "Do not tremble at the dark." The child stops squirming and crying almost immediately at the sound of my voice, eyes opening to stare up at my face. I force myself to choke back a sob as I return her gaze, my only daughter who is about twelve months old now. Every time I look at her, every time she cries out for me or snores in the middle of the night, I think of the father. You can see him in her, within her coppery, reddish-brown hair and mesmerizing blue and yellow eyes…

Link…

I close my eyes again, continuing to rock my arms back and forth, memories flooding my mind like a tidal wave on the shore of the eastern sea.

_Link smiled and sat next to me in front of the fire, reaching to his left to grab a slice of an apple he'd cut just a few moments ago. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, seemingly looking into the fire that was crackling happily in front of us, the smoke rising into the air, casting eerie shadows on the Sacred Grove's trees and the ruins of the Temple of Time. The Master Sword once again sat in its pedestal, glittering in the shaft of moonlight that shined directly on it through a hole in what was left of the roof of the weathered structure. We'd decided to spend the night here, away from everyone, away from all of the celebrations following the end of the war._

_With a soft crunch, the hero bit into the apple slice. I continued to look at him out of my peripheral vision, sizing him up, his muscles, worn tunic and chain mail, brown hair falling delicately into his gorgeous blue eyes that seemed to glow brighter than the moon. I would have even admitted in a heartbeat that that stupid-looking hat suited his boyish features as though it were made for him and only him. He had the look of a man right now, very unlike the young seventeen year-old that I met a year ago. Though technically I was a year older than him and we were of different races, he was undoubtedly the man I loved, truly loved, the man I simply wanted to curl up with._

_Of course, I'd done it before, but I was an imp… and he a wolf. We slept together for body heat and nothing more. I didn't have the slightest feelings for him in the least at the time. Right then, sitting there in the Temple of Time beneath the glow of Link's magnificent holy blade and the careful eye of the trees, I think we both knew what we really wanted. The problem was bringing it up; Link never seemed like the type of person to speak openly of such matters and appeared rather unemotional about the concept. Observing him in the castle town one day after winning a new quiver in some game, he was absolutely oblivious to the girls just outside the building, flirting with him, or if he did notice, he was too much of a gentleman to shove them away like I would have if I wasn't confined to his shadow. That's what he usually let on anyways… not that I'd ever asked him._

"_Link?" I asked quietly before I could stop myself, my voice - even that low - echoing throughout the grove in its entirety. I bit my lip and turned my gaze to a pebble as he looked up at me. I almost decided to ask a different question than I was, but my curiosity got the better of me._

"_Yes Midna?" He inquired, placing his apple back where he got it. I sighed._

"_Have you ever, you know, felt different about someone?" I asked, twiddling my thumbs. "Thought of someone as more than just a friend?" I don't think he was expecting a question like that, his sapphire eyes widening as they slowly turn back to the wild yellow-orange flames before us. He opened his mouth for a moment like he was about to answer me, but I could tell by the look on his face that he doesn't have a proper answer._

_So I was right._

_Tentatively I scooted closer to him, moving until I was sitting directly in front of him, casting his face in cold shadow, his eyes giving off the illusion of glowing in the night. Finally he smiled and leaned back on his arms, cocking his head cutely like a dog would._

_The wolf appears…_

"_Maybe there is," he said carefully, "but I'm guessing you want someone specific." I smiled and nodded, only a tiny bit guilty for asking such a question of him._

"_That is, Link, if you want to tell me," I added quickly. "I honestly won't mind if you don't." He grinned and breathed a soft sigh, leaning forward until he was mere inches from my face._

"_I think you know the answer to that, don't you princess?" he whispered into my ear. His breath, warm against my pale blue-tinted skin, made the hair on my neck and arms stand on end, giving off a slight tingling sensation before changing into a comfortable heat. I closed my eyes while he patiently waited for a response to his statement. I almost didn't want to interrupt or break the silence that had accumulated between us._

"_I might," I answered finally. "But I want to hear you say it." He shot me one of his gentle smiles. He never answers; he only smiles._

_Slowly I moved forward, settling on his lap in a scandalous position that would set the maids within my palace squealing. His eyes followed my movements as I settled and reached a hand up to caress his cheek, running a slender finger sensually up his jaw line. He closed his eyes, seemingly enjoying my gentle touch. I wondered when the last time was he looked so relaxed, when he wasn't ready to fight and possibly kill something or even someone if it was necessary for Hyrule's safety, when he wasn't be attacked or stalked by monsters of all sorts. I doubted he'd ever been like that during the entire quest to save Hyrule and the Twilight Realm. That was a Link I was unused to seeing… but I would be lying if I'd said I didn't enjoy it._

_Nevertheless, it was astonishing how many years the stress and war had put on him._

_When my finger reached his hair line, I ran my fingers through the brown locks slowly, feeling the soft, silky strands. I let his bangs fall back to their previous position over his eyes. It became a cycle: move his bangs, let them fall, move his bangs, let them fall. He still didn't move. Then my hand grazed his hat. I couldn't help but smile as I let my actions take over fully, my fingers slipping under the green fabric until it fell to the ground in a forest-green heap of fabric._

_The hero's calm expression caught my attention next, his eyes still closed, his breathing steady yet slow. I raised my free hand and cupped his face in its palm, the other sliding from his hair down until it rested on the nape of his neck, the limb molding easily into its shape. Then gradually, never once wavering, I leaned forward, closing the last bit of distance between our faces. Our lips met, warily at first. It wasn't for about a full minute or two that I felt something warm and wet slide across my lips. Opening them I gave Link access to my mouth. He probed for a bit, stopping once to get some air before returning to feeling every bit of my mouth with his tongue. Sometime during the kiss he fell backwards onto the ground, rendering me all but on top of him. Alas, it was I that pulled away first. I placed my forehead on his, smirking at how flushed his face was and how his breaths were coming out in small gasps._

"_You never really answered my question, Wolf Boy," I whispered into his ear, rubbing his cheek just below his eye with my thumb and tangling the other in his hair. He paused a moment, breath regained and eyes opening for the first time since we began. In a single fluid motion he flipped us over kissing me again with my back on the ground and hands locked firmly by my wrists in the dirt next to my face by Link's strong hands._

"_I didn't, did I?" he asked, kissing his way down my nose after each word. After another long, passionate kiss he pulls away. "You are the person I care about most in the realms, Midna," he whispered, his lips very nearly touching my ear. "Even before I saw your true form." My heart fluttered, sparks of pleasure shooting through my body just at those words. I ran a hand through his now unruly hair once more, pulling his head towards my face. Stopping when our noses touched, I defied both gravity and Link's strength, sitting up._

_Oh, now he'd done it._

_My hand fell to his belt, my fingers tugging easily at the silver buckle until it came undone. He smirked as I began to remove his tunic, undershirt, and chain mail at the same time, raising his arms accordingly so I would have an easier time getting the heavy fabric and metal over his head. He went for my cloak, undoing the circlet on my head and undoing the ponytail resting on my chest. This went on… but it didn't quite stop there._

The memory ends, the scene lingering in my mind along with his touch, smell, and voice lingering with it as I rock a now sleeping Aurora. It may have been the most cruel thing I'd ever done - not what came later that night as I can never take that back. I was so happy then - but rather the realization that I had to leave one day later. He wouldn't have lasted long in the Twilight Realm, and I had, still have, a kingdom to rule after my late parents when I returned as queen. After that night, I often wish I can feel how he felt when I broke the Mirror of Twilight, only one day after that night in the Sacred Grove, shattered the one thing keeping us physically linked. How that must have felt to a man who finally admitted his feelings for me, and knows my feelings for him… it almost hurts to think about.

And then Aurora was born about seven and a half months later, way too early because of the stress of returning and leaving Link, leaving her father behind in the Light Realm with more than simply a shattered mirror in my wake. It was all too much to bear, which caused me to go into labor early. The nurse had said she probably wouldn't live to see the morning, but I didn't give up hope. She was the last thing left of Link I had besides a few memories and keepsakes and I was determined to keep that piece alive. Looking at her now, you wouldn't even be able to tell. She is the perfect size for her age.

While waiting for the inevitable - which never came - I spent days sulking; not because of the child, as that was one of the happiest days of my entire life. It was because Link didn't get to meet his daughter, see her when she was born. I'm not even sure he knew about her.

Actually, I know he didn't. I hadn't realized it either until everyone in the castle had noticed the difference.

I take a seat at the window again, Aurora in my lap, lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking. As quickly as I can and with as little movement as possible, I wrap my old cloak around us, the black and silver silk cool on my skin. I gaze out over the sky again, the scenery having not changed much except different patterns in the violet-gold clouds high above. I smile when Aurora snores and picture Link again - yup, she's his daughter alright. He always snored when he finally did stop his journey long enough to sleep, quietly, but still audible. I wonder if he is doing alright…

Suddenly it is as if the entire realm shakes; a huge explosion sounds somewhere in the lower portion of the castle, followed closely by several screams and cries that leave my ears ringing. The sound of clashing swords came next. Aurora instantly began to cry out, reaching out with her hands to grab at me. I quickly stood and listened for people outside of my door.

Total silence; whoever is attacking the castle hasn't made it to my floor yet, or if they have, they are good at being quiet. Grabbing another blanket from Aurora's cradle and a scarf of mine, I quickly wrap one around her and the other around my nose and mouth, thinking that bombs mean smoke.

'Don't panic,' I tell myself. 'I can't panic…' But my heart is pounding wildly against my ribcage. Eyes searching my room one last time, I remember something beneath my pillow. I dash over to my large queen bed and reach under the black pillow, feeling for it. 'Where is it, where is it?' I think frantically. When I feel it, I pull it out into sight - an onyx rock covered with orange Twilian designs. Link had used it several times during his quest.

Then came a pounding on my door, harsh pounding like they were trying to knock it down. I freeze and stare at it, eyes wide.

"OPEN UP!"

Zelda frowns and opens her eyes, halting her prayer to the goddesses and lifting her head to stare at the large statue of Nayru sitting in the center of the altar. Something doesn't feel right. "What is this sense of foreboding I feel?" she asks herself quietly. It feels like dark magic - not evil exactly, just… dark, and not quite as powerful as Zant's distinct aura of the Triforce of Power, Ganondorf's so-called "holy" power.

"Princess," a firm voice calls from the opposite side of the chamber. Princess Zelda quickly turns to face the person and frowns at the look on their face. "I'm sorry to interrupt."

"Impa," she says softly, standing from the altar and straightening her silken dress. Her nursemaid/bodyguard Impa walks swiftly over to her, a dark look painted on her usually straight face.

"Something has happened," Impa says, grabbing the princess's hand. Zelda goes rigid for a moment.

"I can sense that, but I don't know what it is-"

"We need to get to the Gerudo Desert," Impa cuts in, dragging the violet-clad princess behind her towards the door leading out of the chamber. "Transform into Sheik, now."

"Impa! What's happened?" Zelda asks, kicking her high-heeled shoes off so she can run faster behind the sheikah, hiking her long skirts with her free hand and ignoring the sting in her feet with each slap they take on the tiled floor of the palace.

"The Mirror of Twilight has been fixed."

**Chapter 2 – Escape**


End file.
